1. Field of Invention
This invention relates generally to the production of candy-coated raisins, and more particularly to a technique for producing raisins having a fat-free candy coating which enhances the nutritional value of the raisins and renders them more palatable.
2. Status of Prior Art
A raisin is a dried fruit of certain variety of grapevines having a high sugar content and solid flesh. Raisins are nutritionally valuable, for they not only have a high natural sugar content, but also contain iron and other minerals as well and vitamins A and B. To convert the grapes into raisins, they must be dehydrated, usually by sun drying.
The production of raisins is limited to those regions such as in California having a long, hot growing season, for the grapes must remain on the vine until they are fully matured and attain a high percentage of sugar. Also enough time must elapse between the harvesting of the grapes and the fall rainy season to permit sun-drying.
Because it is a fruit, a raisin contains no fat, this being nutritionally desireable, for fat-laden foods are interdicted in many diets. Raisins, therefore, are a popular and healthy snack food. However, in some instances, raisins are provided with a chocolate or yogurt coating to add flavor thereto, for most children prefer candy-like snacks. Such raisin coatings have a high fat content and this is nutritionally undesireable. Moreover, chocolate or yogurt coated raisins have a dull appearance which is unappealing to consumers, for then the coated rasins look like amorphous droppings.
Candy-coated food products, before being coated, usually have oil applied to render the surface of the product receptive to the candy coating. This oil increases the fat content of the product.
Raisins, because of their fleshy interior, are chewy and do not crumble when engaged by the teeth. In the context of snack foods, this is a drawback, for with the more popular snack foods, the food product can be bitten into with the teeth and masticated.
Various psychological factors come into play in regard to the satisfaction one obtains in eating a food product that must be masticated so that it is crushed and ground in preparation for swallowing and digestion. This affords a greater degree of satisfaction than a product that requires little or no mastication.
Thus one could provide in a liquid form, a food product whose nutritional content is the same as a solid masticatable product. Yet the typical consumer would enjoy the solid food product far more than the equivalent liquid product which has only to be swallowed. Moreover, the process of mastication stimulates the flow of gastric juices to promote digestion.
Thus the most popular of Italian foods is pasta which when cooked in a conventional manner is soft and limp. The preferred technique for cooking pasta is to impart an "al dente" quality thereto, so that the cooked pasta is then somewhat resistant to the teeth to promote mastication.